Gelu Paul

Gelu serves as the Coordinating Pastor (Senior Pastor) of Vox Domini Baptist Church in Timisoara. Vox Domini was launched in 1998, after more than 15 years of ministry experience focused on college students. Together with a band of five core evangelical leaders and 25 leaders trained in the college student ministry, Vox Domini was born to make disciples of all nations starting in Timisoara college student campus. Today, Vox Domini functions as a multi-site church mobilizing more than 400 people for worship, edification, evangelism and congregational care in two locations, and is preparing the launch of a third site.

Gelu grew up in the 2nd Baptist Church of Oradea, now “Emmanuel Baptist”. During the communist period, his parents lived the Gospel of Jesus Christ at home with integrity and passion. His father served as a deacon and secretary of the church almost until his death in 2005. Gelu grew up in a very healthy and flexible atmosphere, his parents refusing religious indoctrination, and they offered him and his brother Adrian balanced surroundings, as well as the liberty to choose Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour. When he was 14, he publicly expressed his devotion to Jesus Christ, but his father advised him to postpone his baptism until he was older. In high school he was asked to sign a document in which he declared that he didn’t believe in God, which he refused to do. The pressure created at school and the public condemnation in front of his colleagues caused him to no longer postpone his baptism.

From his parents he learned to live the Gospel with integrity and sacrifice. In the autumn of 1981 he was invited to translate for a team of missionaries from the USA who were working secretly, and thus he found his passion. In 1984 he married Rodica, together they developed the underground student movement in Timisoara . In the autumn of 1989, 60 leaders had been discipled by the movement. From 1991 to 1994 he studied theology at the Gordon-Conwell theological seminary in USA . After returning to Romania , he taught Biblical ethics at the Emmanuel Baptist Institute in Oradea for two years. In the fall of 1998 he heard the Lord’s clear call to ministry, and so together with a team of 5 leaders, he planted the church “Vox Domini”, a community of authentic and enthusiastic evangelical Christians, relevant among the adademic community of Timisoara.

In 2000, after 16 years of marriage, God blessed them with Ioana, and three years later with Jonathan Luca.

In 2012, after a four years long fight with cancer, the Lord calls Rodica home, and Gelu focuses on his main responsibility as a father of two children, and provides a safe and healthy home for Ioana and Johnny.

One year after Rodica’s departure, God brings Lidija in Gelu’s life, while she was teaching developmental and educational psychology at the Evangelical Theological Seminary in Osijek, Croatia. The tow get married nine months later and are currently serving together with Ioana and Johnny at Vox Domini Baptist Church, Estera Foundation (A Crisis pregnancy Center) and in BIG.

In BIG Impact Gelu currently serves as the President and Strategic Coordinator. Gelu coordinates the daily affairs of the foundation and its development. Most of his time in BIG, he is devoted to:

• coordinating the executive board
• consolidating and developing the national leadership team
• consolidating and developing the “networks” and the “services” teams
• coordinating the creation and implementation of the leadership development programs and processes
• launching the MA program in global leadership